Bipolar speaker with improved clarity

Abstract

A forward focused bipolar loudspeaker system includes a front-facing driver array and a rear facing driver array with substantially identical front-facing and rear-facing midrange or mid-bass drivers voiced and driven so that the measured SPL curves of each of the arrays, when measured individually, are tonally balanced. The front array and rear array have substantially identical on-axis and off axis frequency response and the rear array's output power (SPL) is reduced by, preferably, about 6 dB with respect to the output power produced by the front-facing array, while retaining a flat tonal balance for both the front and rear speakers, to produce a sound power ratio of about 2:1 as measured by comparing the front and back SPL levels of the speakers. This bipolar speaker system and method for voicing was discovered to provide greater clarity and improved localization while retaining the spacious envelopment of the bipolar sound field.

Description

PRIORITY CLAIMS AND REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS[0001]This application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 61 / 355,433, of Timothy A. Gladwin, filed Jun. 16, 2011 and entitled “Loudspeaker Driver and Bipolar System”, the disclosure of which is hereby incorporated herein in its entirety by reference. This application is directed to improvements on the Bipolar Array Loudspeaker system described in commonly-owned U.S. Pat. No. 5,887,068, and the Electrodynamic Acoustic Transducer described in U.S. Pat. No. 7,684,582, the disclosures of which are hereby incorporated herein in their entireties by this reference.BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION[0002]1. Field of the Invention[0003]The present invention relates, in general, to apparatus and methods for improving the perceived listening performance and clarity of high-fidelity bipolar loudspeakers while retaining and optimizing all of the sense of three-dimensional imaging, or spaciousness, that the bipolar configura...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

The present invention provides a bipolar speaker system that improves tonal balance and sound quality for listeners in actual rooms and living spaces. The system uses a waveguide with a linearity enhancing bulbous-tip shape to improve the high frequency performance of the speaker driver. By using identical front-facing and rear-facing midrange speaker arrays and reducing the rear sound power, the system produces a sound power ratio of about 2:1 that improves localization for the listener while retaining the spacious envelopment of an improved bipolar sound field. The front and rear arrays each use an improved midrange driver with enhanced linearity and a forwardly-projecting, bulbous waveguide structure. The invention provides playback of reproduced signals with a more linear response than possible with prior art drivers.

Problems solved by technology

Without more, however, even though the measured SPL curves of each of the speakers measured individually may be exemplary and the on-axis SPL may be quite good, the individual front and back SPL curves will be uneven and sound quality will suffer.

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